Pumas scrum is potential weakness for Boks to target

If there is something in rugby that is clearly overhyped it is the role that the scrum plays in any Argentina rugby success.

It used to be the case that the Pumas scrum was a fearsome force, with the rest of the world learning from the renowned ‘Bajada’ scrumming technique that was almost the Argentina rugby signature in the 1970s and 1980s.

However, when the Pumas beat the All Blacks in Wellington in the first match of the Castle Lager Rugby Championship, it was in a game that featured hardly any set-scrums. And then a week later, in a game at Eden Park in Auckland where there were a lot of scrums, the Pumas scrum was blown away by their New Zealand opponents.

There were some good moments and bad moments for the Pumas at scrum time in the two home games against the Wallabies, where the two teams broke even at 1-all, but the Australians are hardly a measure of scrumming strength.

And it was noticeable that when Springbok prop Ox Nche spoke about the threats posed at set piece time by the Pumas ahead of Saturday night’s match in Santiago, he referenced the lineouts before the scrums.

“Our theme is to expect the unexpected. They’ve grown their set-piece game, particularly their lineouts. They try new things,” said Nche.

“They can maul and play off the top, they can play around the front or the back of the lineout. So you can see that they have been putting a lot of work into their set pieces.”

That does not mean though that the Boks will be underestimating the Pumas scrum, for a lot of the team energy still comes from that aspect of their game. And they are a unit made up of players who have been around the block a few times at international level.

And they have an Investec Champions Cup winner in their front row in the form of La Rochelle’s Joel Sclavi.

“In terms of the scrum, they have a lot of guys who have been playing at the highest level for quite some time. They have a lot of strengths and work really well together. They just all come together and are really consistent.

To play against a pack like Argentina’s (is tough), they have a lot of pride for their country, that is their motivation, just like us. They play for their people, similar to us.”

That may well be so, but any narrative that portrays the Boks as going into the game needing to fear the Pumas scrum is the result of thinking that is outdated and comes out of a time warp. It is in fact the other way around, even though the Boks have changed up their forward pack since the second win over the All Blacks in Cape Town last time out.

It is the Bok attention to detail that makes them so strong at scrum time, regardless of who is wearing the front row numbers on the day. And there is no question of the Boks ever underestimating anyone in the primary phase, so they will go into Saturday night’s game well prepared.

“The one thing is you have to make sure that if your opponent goes low, you just go lower. If he then goes even lower, then you go lower than that. Whatever you think you are going to give, he is probably going to give back to you. Whatever you think you can take, he can take as well,” said the Bok World Cup winning loosehead.

“For us it’s about going blow for blow, making sure you’re the one that lands that first vital blow. You just have to stand your ground and just keep going through the pain and the challenges.”

If that comes across as a very South African rugby attitude, there are more similarities that Argentinians share with the players from this country, including the climate and the land mass they live on.

“We’ve mentioned during the week in our team meetings that if you come to Argentina, it is pretty much like South Africa,” says Nche. “The only difference is the language. It does feel like home.”

He, Malcolm Marx and Thomas du Toit though will on Saturday night be spearheading a scrumming effort that will be geared towards taking the hosts out of any home comfort zone.